BBL05 Review - The Bottom Four

Brisbane Heat
Once again built a squad that relied heavily on local Queenslanders with just a sprinkling of other state players (most of whom didn't get a look in), and probably finished better than expected with three wins to finish the season. The loss of Brendan McCullum before the comp started was a hindrance. Certainly had star power in captain Chris Lynn and West Indian Badree, but rarely had the firepower to go with other teams.
Lynn was excellent and gave the crowds someone to chant for. Joe Burns Test duties kept him out of the team for most of the series, while the local Grade batsmen were mostly unable to provide the basis of a good total for the team. Last minute inclusion Lendl Simmons is no McCullum.
James Hopes played his last BBL tournament and was again the mainstay with both bat and ball. He has been a great servant for Australian and Queensland cricket and both will miss him.
The Heat probably need a clean out and a re-think before BBL06 comes around to plug the gaping holes in both their batting and bowling line ups.

Hobart Hurricanes
Under performed dreadfully given the roster they had, and the fact that they lost only one player to rep duties (George Bailey) and that was only for their final match.
The batting failed to fire as they would have hoped. Star import Kumar Sangakkara was extremely disappointing, perhaps ranking as the biggest failure of the sixteen imports of the competition. Ben Dunk also failed to find any great form during the tournament, leaving Tim Paine, Bailey and Dan Christian to have to do the heavy work with the bat.
Shaun Tait had his usual moments during the tournament, as did Cameron Boyce, while new kid Jake Reed performed beyond expectations. In the long run, the team was unable to score enough runs with the bat to enable their bowlers to force the issue. For a team with so much batting firepower down through the order which was almost entirely unaffected by injury and representative duties, BBL05 was a massive disappointment.

Sydney Sixers
Last year's finallists were unable to put up a repeat performance this season, though they were a little unlucky along the way. Despite having Michael Lumb, Brad Haddin and Nic Maddinson for the whole tournament, the loss through injury of Moises Henriques left the team a batsman short on most occasions, and also an extra bowling option short. Jordan Silk was also not as beneficial as last season, which meant that big totals were not forthcoming.
Without Brett Lee and Mitchell Starc leading the charge from last season, the bowling also lacked some bite. Jackson Bird was tidy, and Nathan Lyon bowled well when available, but mostly the attack was flat and lacked penetration. Travis Head's demolition of Sean Abbott on New Years Eve was probably the most telling couple of overs of their season.
The squad the Sixers had should probably still have made the finals. No doubt a review of the season will suggest the same theory.

Melbourne Renegades
Had a complete revamp of their playing roster for this season, and still fell short of the finals. The costly exercise of importing Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, as well as picking up Cameron White and Matthew Wade among others, still was unable to force their way into the semi-finals. With the recruitment of the big names, the team appeared unbalanced in having to go with lesser names for other places in the XI, and in the majority of cases this was costly in those games where they were unable to compete. Could be a case of back to the drawing board for the second Melbourne team in the BBL.